l be sure to let me know, won't you?"

"Rather! But honestly, I'm not likely to have such a bit of luck as
this again."

"What will you be doing?"

"Whatever I'm told to do; the sort of thing I was on before--odd jobs
of the 'hush' type. But I wish I could think of you doing something
more--well, more worthy of your gifts."

"One must take one's luck as it comes," she said with an outward air of
philosophy, whatever her heart whispered.

"Exactly," he agreed with emphasis. "Still----"

He broke off, and pulled a pipe out of his pocket.

"I'll leave you to smoke," she said, "and say good-night now."

"One moment!" said he, jumping up; "there's something I feel I must
say. I've been rather contrite about it. I'm afraid I haven't quite
played cricket so far as you are concerned."

She looked at him quickly.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"It's about Belke. I'm afraid Phipps was quite right in saying I'm
rather cold-blooded when I am keen over a job. Perhaps it becomes a
little too much of a mere problem. Getting you to treat Belke as you
did, for instance. You were very nice to him to-night--though he was
too German to understand how you felt--and it struck me that very
possibly you had been seeing a great deal of him, and he's a
nice-looking fellow, with a lot of good stuff in him, a brave man, no
doubt about it, and--well, perhaps you liked him enough to make you
wish I hadn't let you in for such a job. I just wondered."

She looked at him for an instant with an expression he did not quite
understand; then she looked away and seemed for a moment a little
embarrassed, and then she looked at him again, and he thought he had
never seen franker eyes.

"You're as kind and considerate as--as, well, as you're clever!" she
said with a half laugh. "But, if you only knew, if you only even had
the least guess how I've longed to do something for my
country--something really useful, I mean; how unutterably wretched I
felt when the trifling work I was doing was stopped by a miserable
neglected cold and I had to have a change, and as I'd no money I had to
take this stupid job of teaching; and how I envied the women who were
more fortunate and really _were_ doing useful things; oh, then you'd
know how grateful I feel to you! If I could make every officer in the
German navy--and the army too--fall in love with me, and then hand them
over to you, I'd do it fifty times over! Don't, please, talk nonsense,
or